Friday, September 18, 2009

Friday Links!

The links this week are some the most interesting you guys have ever sent in--gems all around.

Leading off, from The Edwin Garcia Links Machine, a mind-blowing article about MIT students taking photos from space. Not impressed yet? Their budget was $150. They're going to publish a full list of materials, and you better believe that I'll be doing this with Eli 8.1.

From DQ reader My Wife, a link to to an epic story about a wildlife filmmaker who brought back an unwanted guest from her vacation-- in her head. It was a botfly, and you can both read the story and watch a video of the extraction (freaking incredible) here.

Here's an absolutely fascinating link (thanks to The Monkey Cage) to visual depictions of Presidential Inaugural Addresses. Here's a description:
In these visualizations, a given text—the “specimen”—is compared to some larger group of texts—the “normative” text—using the Dunning log likelihood statistical analysis, which gives weight to words in a text according to how their frequency of use in the specimen text differs from the norm.

My boss sent me a link to a totally fascinating article about Clay Marzo, a world-class surfer who has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. The article is titled Liquid Cure, and here's a link to a short (three minute) preview of a documentary as well. He does some things on waves that I've never seen before.

I still have incredibly fond memories of the Dreamcast, and Gamasutra has an excellent feature on the console titled The Rise And Fall Of The Dreamcast.

From Vahur Teller, a link that is both incredibly beautiful and heartbreaking--photos of some of the most polluted places on Earth. I say "beautiful" because the composition of some of the photos is entirely remarkable.

Hennie van Loggerenberg sent in a link to a story about pervious concrete, and here's a description:
Pervious concrete [is] a green technology that allows water to pass through instead of running off the surface, thus reducing the need for expensive storm water retention ponds and other infrastructure.

Amazing, and here's another link that provides a video demonstration.

From Jesse Leimkuehler, new pictures of Triton and new images from the Hubble.

I've linked to several versions of the infamous "Downfall" parody (Hitler film with new subtitles), but now there's a parody of the parodies (thanks to Mike Gilbert for the link).

From Juan Font, a fantastic link to 10 Images That Are Actually Paintings.

From Chris Meyer, a link to an article about Haast's eagle, now extinct but a predator (up until 500 years ago) of large birds--and possibly humans.

Here's an outstanding link from Sirius about biscuit injuries. An excerpt:
More than half of all Britons have been injured by biscuits ranging from scalding from hot tea or coffee while dunking or breaking a tooth eating during a morning tea break, a survey has revealed.

More unusually, three per cent had poked themselves in the eye with a biscuit...

That may sound incredible, but remember, the biscuit is the only edible food in England. I kid.

Also from Sirius, a spectacular image of a geological phenomenom known as a Danxia Landform.

From Aaron Daily, a link to a story about the oldest known fiber materials used by humans--a 34,000 year old piece of string.

From Steven Kreuch, a link to what must be the funniest anti-virus ad I've ever seen: protect your chicken from Dokken. Plus a link to a video of a well-known psychological experiment for children called The Marshmallow Test. Even better, a lengthy story from The New Yorker about the test is here.

From John Harwood, who has already logged 1,000 hours (at least) with The Beatles: Rock Band, a link to a hilarious version of the music video of Penny Lane titled Penny Lane: Literal Video Version.

From J.R. Parnell, a link to 21 spectacular photographs and how they were taken.

Finally, from Randy Graham, a link to some absolutely spectacular outdoor murals (I'm not sure that's the right term, but the conversion of plain walls into these beautiful paintings is quite remarkable).

Site Meter